However, I do admire you, Edith, immensely. I only wish--"
Again she evaded him.
"Please do not forget Mr. Bomford," she begged.
"That silly old ass!" Burton exclaimed. "Looks as though he'd swallowed
a poker! You're never going to marry him!"
"I think that I shall," she replied. "At any rate, at present I am
engaged to him. Therefore, if you please, you must keep just a little
further away. I don't like to mention it, but I think--haven't you been
smoking rather too much?"
He laughed, without a trace of sensitiveness. "I have been having
rather a day of it," he admitted. "But I say, Edith, if you won't come
to supper, I think you might let a fellow--"
She drew back into her corner.
"Mr. Burton," she said, "you must please not come near me."
"But I want a kiss," he protested. "You'd have given me one the other
night. You'd have given me as many as I'd liked. You almost clung to
me--that night under the cedar tree."
Her eyes for a moment were half closed.
"It was a different world then," she whispered softly. "It was a
different Mr. Burton. You see, since then a curtain has come down. We
are starting a fresh act and I don't think I know you quite so well as I
did."
"Sounds like tommyrot," he grumbled.
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